Rare monster star has spewed four suns

Yellow hypergiants - a massive, short-lived type of star - are very rare. This infrared image, captured by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope array, is the best ever taken of one these monster stars. It shows the central hypergiant, surrounded by two shells of ejected material.

The star is a thousand times larger than the sun, but was not previously identified as a yellow hypergiant despite its bright glow. Right now it is at a volatile stage in its life: it has ejected the mass of four suns in a span of a few hundred years. The double shell of expelled material has led to the nickname "fried egg nebula".